Tribal Justice

Overview

The Center’s Tribal Justice Exchange provides technical assistance to tribal communities seeking to develop or enhance their tribal justice systems. Funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Tribal Justice Exchange has three major goals:

  1. ensuring that tribal communities have access to training and ongoing technical assistance about problem-solving community-based practices;
  2. encouraging formal collaborations between traditional tribal justice systems and state and local court systems;
  3. identifying and disseminating best practices developed in Indian country that could help strengthen public safety initiatives elsewhere in the United States.

The Tribal Justice Exchange offers a range of services designed to meet these goals. To get help planning, implementing, or evaluating your program, click here. Click here to see upcoming grant opportunities and here to see upcoming conferences.

Recent Developments

Can Peacemaking Work Outside of Tribal Communities?
A group of practitioners and policymakers from both tribal and state courts participated in a daylong discussion in December 2011 about Indian peacemaking with an eye toward documenting introducing peacemaking in non-Indian settings. The roundtable was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, in collaboration with the Center for Court Innovation.

Click here to read more about the discussion.

Participants included, Judge Michael D. Petoskey of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, Judge David D. Raasch of the Stockbridge-Munsee Tribal Court, and Judge Alex Calabrese of the Red Hook Community Justice Center.Participants included, Judge Michael D. Petoskey of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, Judge David D. Raasch of the Stockbridge-Munsee Tribal Court, and Judge Alex Calabrese of the Red Hook Community Justice Center.

Tribal Justice Exchange Staff

Aaron Arnold, Director
(315) 266-4331

Brett Taylor, Deputy Director
(646) 386-4463

Kathryn Ford, Senior Associate
(646) 386-4181

Erika Sasson, Senior Associate
(646) 386-5922

Sarah Reckess, Senior Associate
(315) 266-4332

Norma S. Feldman, Program Administrator
(315) 266-3440

Publications

State and Tribal Court: Strategies for Bridging the Divide

By Aaron Arnold, Sarah Cumbie Reckess and Robert V. Wolf

This monograph describes the current landscape of collaboration between state and tribal justice systems, detailing the history, barriers to effective cooperation, and promising recent developments in the field.

Interviews

Harry B. Wallace, Chief, Unkechaug Tribe, Suffolk County, New York

Harry B. Wallace has served as Chief of the Unkechaug Indian Nation since 1994. He is a licensed attorney in New York State. The Unkechaug people reside on the Poospatuck Reservation on Long Island, New York.

Read More

Articles

The State of Pretrial Release Decision-Making in Tribal Jurisdictions: Closing the Knowledge Gap

By John Clark

This study examines pretrial release decision-making practices in tribal courts by pulling together evidence from focus group and survey responses, as well as tribal case law. This article was originally published in the Fall 2009 Journal of Court Innovation Special Issue on Tribal Justice.

Most Popular Research

Publications

Journal of Court Innovation

The Fall 2009 issue is devoted to tribal justice. The articles and interviews examine some of the pressing challenges facing tribal courts as well as the changing relationships of federal, state, and tribal justice systems.

Audio

Tribal Courts and Families: Native American Sovereignty and the Indian Child Welfare Act

Theresa Pouley, chief judge of the Tulalip Tribal Court in Washington State, Michael Petoskey, chief judge of the Pokagan Band of Potawatomi Indians in Michigan, and William A. Thorne Jr., a Pomo/Coast Miwok Indian appointed to the Utah Court of Appeals, discuss the Indian Child Welfare Act and the advantages of transferring child welfare cases from state to tribal jurisdiction. This is one of three podcasts produced in collaboration with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. (July 2011)

Read More

Audio

Problem-Solving Justice in Indian Country: The Navajo Nation Plans a Pilot Community Court

Court Administrator Susie Martin and Chief Probation Officer Lucinda Yellowhair explain how the Navajo Nation's pilot community court will draw on their culture's traditional restorative justice principles.

Contact
  • New York
  • 520 8th Avenue
  • 18th Floor
  • New York, NY 10018
  • phone: 646.386.3100
  • Syracuse
  • One Park Place
  • 300 South State Street
  • Syracuse, NY 13202
  • phone: 315.266.4330
  • London
  • Kean House, 6 Kean Street
  • London, WC2B 4AS
  • phone: +44 2076.329.060